The Indiana Dunes Campground provided a mostly peaceful night’s sleep. We even had neighbors who created a calm mood with their band. However, the regular freight trains and the hum of the interstate combined with getting used to sleeping on the ground made for a slightly sleepless night. I was wide awake shortly before six and finally convinced myself to try to outrun the mosquitoes and get some exercise. The lure of family snuggle time made me want to stay in the tent, but knowing we had a five hour drive up into Michigan gave me the final boost to get up.
The sky danced with the idea of rain all morning and just before we ate breakfast a handful of large drops made their presence known. The kids were awesome and stuffed their sleeping bags and rolled their mats in literally less than five minutes. We don’t think they have ever moved that fast. No whining, no rerolling, no problems at all. Scott and I both looked at each other. We were pretty sure we were in an alternate reality. They took the tent down in less than five minutes too. Could this be the new reality or did aliens replace our children last night? Stay tuned to find out.
Today has been all about healthy food choices. We started with oatmeal for breakfast, Frosties for a mid-morning snack and Little Cesear’s for lunch. While on our quick grocery stop Scott scooped up some KitKats and Hershey minis. 
Yeah… so it is a vacation. We can get back to healthy next week.
After our five hour drive our next stop was Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore. We found a campsite and then headed to the Dune Climb.
This is the view from the parking lot. While Scott and I were getting situated Cody looped and ran up and down the hill like he had never seen a giant hill of sand before. We told him to save his energy, but he just kept going. After we reached the top of the first hill, there was another hill, and then another…
Notice in the picture with Scott, Cody, and Brooke walking how far ahead Brooke is. Watch how quickly that changes. The downhill sections were nice. Scott said it was like, “Walking on marshmallows.” The sand was slightly wet and a little fluffy.
Brooke was not appreciating the fairly strenuous sandy climb as much, “I thought we were at the top when we climbed the first hill and then I thought we were at the top on the second hill and it may be a beautiful view, but the hills just keep coming!” The park brochure said the Dune Climb was only three miles and, “great for kids!” We hiked for an hour each way. The steady rainfall was actually welcome relief for our bare feet and for the blowing sand that has whipped at us at past sand dune hikes like in Colorado.
Cody excitedly pointed out an entire hill of wildflowers. Not too long ago he would have stopped and picked some flowers for me, but I think we finally trained him to try to appreciate them and leave them for others to appreciate too. Not to mention the National Park Service rather appreciates you leaving the natural beauty in its original place. In the close up picture of me you can see our little Miss deciding she’s done with this hike and is going off on her own. I decided to try to take pictures of the wildflowers to pass the time while the boys went on ahead and Brooke was… well not going on ahead.
When the wildflowers were all pictured I broke out the only snack I happened to have in my backpack. She took the bait, but wouldn’t pose for a picture. We were incredibly excited to finally find post number twenty-seven, the last post before the Lake Michigan. It would have made sense if the 27 posts were evenly distributed among the three mile hike, but the were very randomly scattered, yet always bringing excitement when they were discovered.
We made it! Just in time for the rain and wind to get really serious. We were all shivering, but trying to soak in the moment figuratively and literally.
Cody’s tiny yet far more impactful footprints than mine to the right, were scattered all over the beach as he excitedly found all sorts of things to look at and throw into the lake. Scott joined him and tossed in a large piece of driftwood. We met a grandma who told us about the state rock of Michigan which happens to be petrified coral.
On our way back to the car we walked for a little bit with a grandpa and a girl a little younger than Brooke. The girl kept repeating, “Two hills. My grandma said this hike was just two hills.” It was just a few more than two hills…
We all posed at stake number eight in honor of Cody being almost eight and sheer excitement that we were getting closer and closer to the beginning.
Post number zero! It meant the hike was mostly over. The two kids who almost couldn’t take another step were suddenly running and chasing each other as if they hadn’t just hiked for two hours through hills of sand.
A little drive-by in the rain site seeing with mobile mom deployment for pictures was next on our list. Then we drove to a picnic area to cook up some Jiffy Jambalaya for dinner. We were hoping for a pavilion or shelter of some sort to cook out of the rain. There was no formal shelter to be found, but we did get a little shelter from some pine trees and the back door of the van. After we ate we sat in the car for a little bit and planned our activities for the next day. Brooke was determined to get an early start and argued that everyone should get up at 6am. Cody worked on his duct tape projects while the rest of us planned. The new hours of duct tape entertainment are compliments of a camp from last week, my favorite camp that I ever had the privilege to teach, Camp Invention. At this point he has kept himself happy for over ten hours of traveling with just duct tape.
The kids were having trouble settling down for sleep after sitting in the car for more than five hours and then running into the shelter of the tent fairly early into the night. Scott caught their attention with an A Team episode on his phone. In this episode the A Team stopped an animal poacher. 
It was a fairly quiet night except for the pitter patter splatter of rain throughout the night.
